Longevity - All posts tagged Longevity

I seem to be spending a lot of time on Social Security lately, as a barrage of articles, op-eds, and blogs contend that the program is dramatically more generous than we thought and in much worse shape. The most recent missile is Andrew Biggs’ Wall Street Journal op-ed, “Liberals for Social Security Insolvency.” Biggs notes that 75-year Social Security deficit projections by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) have nearly quadrupled between 2008 and 2014. He uses the CBO projections to argue that it is foolish to put forth proposals to expand the program.

Getty Images

Which numbers should you use in a budget battle?

The angle that I find the most disturbing is the suggestion that Social Security costs bounce around, that we don’t really know what’s going on, and that six years from now they could quadruple once again. Nothing could be further from the truth. The elements involved in these projections are changing at a glacial speed.

It’s that time of year again: time for Fidelity’s annual reminder of just how much it costs to grow old. Ok, maybe they don’t phrase it quite that way. But that’s the subtext of the Fidelity Retiree Health Care Cost Estimate.

iStock

Retiree healthcare tally: $220,000

This year’s projection is that couples retiring at age 65 are expected to incur $220,000 in health care costs on average during their retirement years. This figure is unchanged from last year, although that’s hardly a cause for celebration for your average pre-retiree. Most people haven’t saved $220,000 period, much less earmarked that amount for healthcare costs.

That’s been true for a while, as you might expect, but the interesting wrinkle is this: The U.S. appears to have acquired a growing life-expectancy gap to go with its growing wealth gap. Over the last couple of decades, life expectancy grew considerably faster for wealthier people than it did for middle-income folks – while women among the bottom 40% of earners actually saw their average lifespans decline. The chart below, from our friends at WSJ.com, shows how lifespans have changed for Americans born in 1940, compared with those born in 1920.

Watchers of daytime cable TV might recall ads featuring septugenarians with six-pack abs. These are often from companies selling HGH, or human growth hormone. A story in the Wall Street Journal this week, by Shirley S. Wang, reports rising sales of these hormones, which some tout for their anti-aging properties.

Shutterstock

You may be better off without HGH.

The global market for human growth hormone, or HGH, will reach an estimated $4.7 billion by 2018, up from $3.5 billion in 2011, according to Global Industry Analysts, a market research firm, the Journal reports. HGH is thought to tighten skin, increase muscle tone and energy, and confer other benefits.

We all know that the perils of being a couch potato–or a desk jockey–include an expanding waistline and back pain. But recent research suggests that too much sitting is linked to major disability after age 60.

Shutterstock

He would do well to find a more active hobby.

The study, by researchers at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, was the first to show sedentary behavior is its own risk factor for disability, independent of lack of exercise. In other words, it suggests moderate exercise isn’t going to ameliorate the negative effects of too much sedentary time. It also implies that the benefits of an active retirement extend beyond the satisfaction of checking items off your bucket list.

It’s hardly a ranking to celebrate. Even as the U.S. stands among the top two in the overall medal count in Sochi, it barely cracks the top 20 nations when it comes to retirement security, according to Natixis Global Asset Management, a Paris- and Boston-based company with $838 billion under management. Among the countries the U.S. trails: top-ranked Switzerland and second-ranked Norway, as well as Australia, New Zealand, Canada and South Korea.

Reuters

In this contest, the U.S. finishes far from the podium.

Not surprisingly, Western European countries with big commitments to social welfare programs dominate the top 10. “You have higher tax rates in Europe and even in Canada than we do here in the U.S., but they also have better funded national retirement programs,” says David Lafferty, chief market strategist for Natixis.

If you find yourself mindlessly chomping your way through a bowl of mixed nuts this weekend while watching the big game, don’t be too hard on yourself: You may be boosting your chances of living longer. According to a study published this week in the New England Journal of Medicine, people who said they regularly ate nuts had lower short-term death rates overall, as well as lower rates of death from cancer, heart and respiratory disease and other ailments, than those who didn’t partake..

Shutterstock

One serving a week is good; one a day is better.

Other studies have suggested a link between higher nut consumption and lower rates of diabetes and cardiovascular problems. But the new report, by a team of researchers at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital, carries extra weight because it involves a huge pool of subjects—specifically, nearly 120,000 women and men who were tracked over almost three decades in the Nurses’ Health Study and the Health Professionals Follow-up Study.

Do you remember your parents’ Social Security numbers but not your own? Are you on a first-name basis with your hospital security guard? Then you’re probably a caregiver, according to a recent AARP video featuring Jeff Foxworthy, the comedian known for his “You Might Be a Redneck If” routine.

Know the guard’s name? Maybe you’re a caregiver.

November is National Family Caregivers Month, a designation started by the Caregiver Action Network (formerly known as the National Family Caregivers Association) and recognized by each president since Bill Clinton in 1997. The movement aims to recognize and thank the family caregivers who provide an estimated $450 billion worth of uncompensated care to loved ones annually.

For the past decade, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has projected lower 75-year deficits than the Social Security trustees. That relationship has now reversed, with CBO projecting a larger 75-year shortfall. One reason for the reversal is that CBO has switched from relying on the Social Security actuaries’ mortality assumptions and have come up with their own. The question is whether this is an earth-shattering development or another data point.

Both the CBO and the trustees present almost an identical picture of Social Security relative to the economy. Social Security costs as a percent of GDP are scheduled to rise from about 5% today to 6.2% around 2040. Therefore, the new life expectancy numbers do not involve exploding Social Security costs.

“You can keep your boy geniuses in Silicon Valley, your young guns tearing up the fashion world, your celebrated wunderkinder in music and art and finance and government,” writes Jeffrey Kluger in a recent article in Time magazine. Instead, let’s celebrate the authors, architects, painters and composers who produce some of their best works late in life, he writes.

Reuters

What if Van Gogh had lived to be an old man?

Increasingly, brain research is illuminating the connections between creativity and age, the article says. And it’s not just the masters—such as Frank Lloyd Wright, who started designing the iconic Guggenheim Museum at age 76, or Grandma Moses, who embarked on a successful painting career at the same age— who can benefit from thinking creatively later in life. Doctors, lawyers, hedge-fund managers and others have to think creatively to succeed, Kluger writes, and evidence suggests that their work, which requires them to remain nimble and adaptive, also helps them to remain creative over time.

About Encore

Encore looks at the changing nature of retirement, from new rules and guidelines for financial security to the shifting identities, needs and priorities of people saving for and living in retirement. Our lead blogger is editor Matthew Heimer, and frequent contributors include editor Amy Hoak, writer Catey Hill, and MarketWatch columnists Elizabeth O’Brien, Robert Powell and Andrea Coombes. Encore also features regular commentary from The Wall Street Journal retirement columnists Glenn Ruffenach and Anne Tergesen and the Director of the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College, Alicia H. Munnell.